Indian Navy Captain Madhusudhan Reddy, who died in a paramotoring accident, was not wearing a life jacket when he was rescued from the Arabian sea on Friday evening, police sources said. 55-year-old Madhusudhan Reddy had gone on a paramotoring ride on Friday evening at the Rabindranath Tagore beach as his family from Bengaluru went to visit him.
The police said that since the lockdown began, Madhusudhan was based in Karwar, while his family members were in Bengaluru. As adventure sporting activities reopened on Friday, the family had decided to go paramotoring.
However, a technical snag in the paramotor attached to Madhusudhan Reddy’s equipment allegedly failed when he was 100m above sea level. After he fell into the water, his body got tangled in the equipment’s ropes, and he drowned due to the weight of the motor.
According to Santosh Kumar, the investigating officer in the case, Madhusudhan and his family had enlisted the services of Vidyadhar Vaidya, who owned the paramotoring equipment. The family members had all finished their ride and it was Madhusudhan’s turn when the mishap occurred. The Karwar Town police have registered an FIR under Section 304A (causing death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code against Vidyadhar Vaidya, the paramotor pilot.
“The captain was not wearing a life jacket. It is mandatory to provide safety gear to anyone who wants to partake in adventure sports. We suspect negligence on these grounds. We will be able to reveal more information after the investigation is complete,” a source with the Karwar Town police said.
Indian Navy Captain dies in paramounting mishap, his fall captured on camera @thenewsminute pic.twitter.com/OdyXOG4FEk
— Theja Ram (@thejaram92) October 3, 2020
According to the police, both Vidyadhar and Madhusudhan fell into the water but Vidyadhar was saved immediately by fishermen, while Madhusudhan drowned. The doctors at Karwar Institute of Medical Sciences have concluded that Madhusudhan died of cold water shock.
In addition, investigators said that the ambulance took 30 minutes to arrive due to which Inspector Santosh had to take Madhusudhan to KIMS in his police jeep.
'Need an ambulance control room in district'
Speaking to TNM, Uttara Kannada District Health Officer Dr Sharad Nayak said that the district is facing problems in deploying ambulance services as the control room is centralised and located in Bengaluru.
“When a call is made to 108, the operator is in Bengaluru. They take the addresses and redirect them to the nearest ambulances. More often than not, the operators in Bengaluru don’t know the terrain of the area or the locality properly and instead end up sending an ambulance that is located far away to the spot. This back and forth itself takes 15 minutes and by the time the ambulance reaches, half an hour or more would already have passed,” DHO Sharad Nayak said.
Dr Sharad Nayak said that the issue of ambulance delays can be solved if there was a control room in the district headquarters itself, where operators who know the lay of the land are employed to disburse the ambulances accordingly. He said that the nearest ambulance to Rabindranath Tagore beach was located just two lanes away, where the Karwar Institute of Medical Sciences is located and yet the operator took over 15 minutes to inform KIMS personnel about the emergency.
“The hospital is located 3-4 minutes away from the beach. And yet there was a delay,” he added. He further stated that the district has 20 ambulances and that each ambulance has to travel long distances due to the prevailing emergency due to COVID-19. “Locating an ambulance takes longer since the operators are in Bengaluru city. We have been asking for one in the district for a long time now,” he added.